Student work teaches about Navajo emergence, coyote stories
Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero Window Rock High senior Ty Metteba, right, plays a Navajo string game Dec. 3 in Fort Defiance at the Diné Drama Festival.
Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero
Window Rock High junior Sierra Begaye, smiles as she looks on with a cutout of the cartoon character named Wile E. Coyote, that Begaye and her Diné Club classmates from the Navajo bilingual class used to tell their “Coyote Steals the Fire” story during the Diné Drama Festival in Fort Defiance.
FORT DEFIANCE
Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero
Window Rock High senior Ty Metteba, right, plays a Navajo string game Dec. 3 in Fort Defiance at the Diné Drama Festival.
In Lydia Fasthorse’s 20-year career, she has learned that many young people may not hear the vital stories of Navajo culture at home.
That was one big reason why she worked with other educators on the Navajo Nation to give high school students a venue to not just learn, but to tell those stories – particularly the Emergence and Coyote stories reserved for winter among the Diné.
“A lot of times, the families don’t share their stories, and then our young people, especially high school students, don’t know the stories,” said Fasthorse. “They’re so important.”
Fasthorse and others coordinated the Diné Drama Festival, held on Dec. 3 at the Window Rock High.
At the festival, students gave performances by which they told the Navajo winter stories including the Diné Emergence and Coyote stories.
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